Louisiana Tech 2004 — Recruiting Outcomes

Hits & Misses

Hit: Danny Horwedel (K) — Originally unranked. Outcome: All Conference. Horwedel achieved All Conference status, a commendable feat considering his initial unranked status. Hit: Quin Harris (S) — Originally unranked. Outcome: All Conference. Despite his initial lack of ranking, Harris managed to secure a position as an All Conference player. Miss: Seneca Chambers (WR) — Originally ranked 8. Outcome: Contributor. Chambers was one of the highest-ranked recruits but underperformed by only achieving a Contributor status. Miss: Bill Jones (IOL) — Originally ranked 977. Outcome: Contributor. Despite a fairly high original ranking, Jones only managed to contribute to the team rather than becoming a core player.

Development Story

The 2004 Louisiana Tech recruiting class demonstrates a prevalent trend of unranked recruits exceeding expectations and initially highly ranked recruits underperforming. The case of Horwedel and Harris, both unranked, becoming All Conference players reflects an exceptional talent development program at Louisiana Tech, which seems to be particularly effective at nurturing unheralded recruits. However, the underperformance of highly ranked recruits like Chambers and Jones suggests a potential difficulty in translating high school success to the college level. The disparity between original class ranking and the S2S rerank also indicates that Louisiana Tech was unable to fully capitalize on its 51st ranked class.

Outcome Summary

Given the significant drop from an original class ranking of 51 to an S2S rerank of 95, it is clear that this class underperformed expectations. The movement in the rerank is largely due to the underperformance of the high-ranking recruits, which overshadowed the overperformance of the unranked recruits. In conclusion, while Louisiana Tech's 2004 recruiting class demonstrated successful development of unranked players, the underutilization of high-ranking recruits resulted in a lower than expected outcome.